The Hummer Takes Over (2001)

This Day

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

It's September 9th. This day in 2001, a nationwide advertising campaign is underway for The Hummer truck, which has recently been taken over by GM and is poised to be everywhere.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss how the Hummer moved from the Gulf War to US streets, was all over hip-hop videos, and how it came to define a form of agressive American masculinity that is resurging today.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to This Day, a history show from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan.
0:10.9	This day, September 2001, a nationwide advertising campaign begins for the Hummer H1, the giant truck
0:19.9	that was originally designed for U.S. military use,
0:23.0	and then became synonymous somehow with both war zones and hip-hop videos throughout the 1990s.
0:29.5	And now going into the 2000s, Hummer had been acquired by General Motors, and it was to become
0:34.7	one of the most iconic cars of the early 2000s, a time when the cars were
0:39.3	getting bigger and bigger and bigger and more masculine and tougher, and the U.S. public was a little
0:44.7	more fixated on military gear and military gear from abroad showing up on American streets.
0:50.8	So here to discuss the rise of the Hummer and what it meant.
0:55.7	As always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley, who both still own their hummers.
1:00.0	It's crazy. Yeah, but you know, the lease has, yeah, the lease is still going. Yeah, no, I,
1:05.1	they keep trying to give me like a more fuel efficient one and I was like, no, I like getting my
1:10.5	eight miles to a gallon. Okay. I'm like so hype fuel efficient one. And I was like, no, I like getting my eight miles to a gallon.
1:13.1	Okay.
1:13.4	I'm like so hype for this episode because the Hummer, like I feel like, you know,
1:17.8	I have music that's like the soundtrack to your life or whatever.
1:20.4	When I was high school college, the Hummer was everything.
1:25.5	Like ever, and it had to be yellow.
1:27.4	Do you pin it to a particular rapper celebrity?
1:30.8	I do.
1:31.8	I do.
1:32.4	I feel like, you know, Nelly, I feel like, I feel like, there's certain songs that I think of
	...

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